Courtesy Quinnipiac Athletics
By: Dylan Fearon
For the second straight year, the Quinnipiac men’s basketball has started the season 0-2. After falling to Vermont on its home court 94-70, the Bobcats fell to Columbia Monday 86-78 at the TD Bank Sports Center. It wasn’t pretty, but it has to be talked about. Enjoy.
When will the first win come?
Get a Kleenex, Bobcats fans. The fact that the answer to this question is extremely unknown a bit is frightening. Now sitting at 0-2, the Bobcats have to go down to Orlando in search of its first victory, which will be excruciatingly tough based on how they’ve performed so far this season. Quinnipiac’s first opponent in the ESPN Advocare Invitational is Gonzaga on Thanksgiving Day, which is currently 11th in latest AP Poll. Every player Tom Moore sends out onto the court would have to do yeoman’s work if Quinnipiac wants to compete with the Bulldogs. Assuming they lose, the next day the Bobcats would then take on the loser of Seton Hall and Florida, two Power-5 teams with a lot of talent. And then two days later Quinnipiac would battle Iowa State, Stanford, Miami or Indiana State, whichever program also loses two games. That’s three Power-5 teams and the Sycamores who finished 15-17 last year and have started this season 2-1. Not a cakewalk by any means. Then that brings us to the first two conferences games of the season. Monmouth comes to town on Dec. 1, and the way the Hawks look, Quinnipiac doesn’t have a good chance here. The Bobcats will probably be 0-6 going into a Dec. 4 tilt with Marist. But even that isn’t a guaranteed win. Yikes.
The first half was… interesting?
Quinnipiac had nine days to prepare for Columbia. Not three or four, but NINE. It seemed like the Bobcats had a great game plan for the Lions, and were executing well the first ten minutes of the half. Quinnipiac led 18-12 at one point, but ended up going into the locker room down 48-30. That’s a 36-12 Columbia run. Quinnipiac had absolutely no true inside presence. Chaise Daniels was flat out poor in the first 20 minutes (although he got it together in the second half), Ja’Kwan Jones played minimally and didn’t show anything worth writing home about, and Donovan Smith didn’t even step foot on the court. The only bright spot was Abdulai Bundu who was tough and strong inside, putting up seven points and six rebounds. After a tough game against Vermont, the sophomore responded. But it was hard to watch everyone else. Columbia shot 63 percent from the field (19/31), and there was no answer for Nate Hickman and Luke Petrasek. Looks like it’s going to be a long year for this bunch.
Work in progress
Remember that it will take time for this group to play well together. This is a program that was 9-21 last year and lost three point guards and six players overall. It lost its best player (Giovanni McLean) and its best on-ball defender (James Ford, Jr.). Tom Moore is starting two players in his backcourt who were in JUCO uniforms last year. The only returning starter that could score the rock is Daniel Harris, and he has looked solid through two games, shooting 42 percent from downtown. So if anything, expectations should be lower than last year’s were. The offense is new, and compliment Moore for pushing the ball more. But it’s hard to be patient after years of 15-15 and 9-21. The Bobcats, picked to finish 10th in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference preseason poll, looked good at the start of each half, but couldn’t make it last. The second half was much better than the first, but it the Lions still had a 14-point edge before Quinnipiac hit two meaningless threes. The Advocare Invitational is next for this crew. Maybe it’ll have some magic like Monmouth did on the same court last year?
